Stones/Who Reissues: Redeeming The Irredeemable?

The flow of deluxe reissues of back-catalog albums continues unabated, tapping into the diminishing market of us Gen-Xers and Boomers who still buy actual CDs. And with the holiday season just around the corner, we've got new reissues from two of the biggies--and, coincidentally, two of the records I dislike most from The Who and The Stones. Do the reissues redeem these personal non-favorites? Not really, but the bonus live music is pretty great.

The Who's 1978 Who Are You has always been a massive downer for me, the sort of album that, even in its bright spots, has always made me a little depressed. The Who were my first favorite band as a kid, and I spent my early teen years digging into their archives and falling in love with each album I discovered. That enthusiasm dimmed just a bit with 1975's Who By Numbers--still a fine album (and one which I appreciate a bit more these days), though certainly not as earth-shaking and grandiose as monsters like Tommy and Who's Next and Quadrophenia. But Who Are You was all kinds of bleh. It felt tired and uninspired, bogged down by strings and a few dreadful clunkers. The obvious stand-out title track was great, but quickly became dulled by classic rock overplay, and the few tracks I genuinely enjoyed (Entwistle's love-letter to hookers "Trick Of The Light" (sadly ironic given his later fate) and his quirky robot song "905"; Pete's fairly decent if quickly-dated "Sister Disco" and "Guitar And Pen") weren't enough to bring me back for repeated listens.

Of course, the real problem is that the album was emotionally tied up in the untimely demise of Keith Moon, and the band that had literally changed my life reaching its end has always tainted the experience for me. Indeed, I personally prefer their two records with Kenney Jones, 1981's Face Dances and (some of) 1982's It's Hard, which at least felt relatively vital and freed from the Moon overhang (though both would've been a little better had Pete not been dividing his best songs between the Who and his solo albums).

I'd kinda hoped that the deluxe edition would unearth some buried treasures, or at least some rougher versions, that would allow me to create a more personalized Who Are You that holds up better. But there are only a couple non-album originals (which were previously released), nothing special; and the alternative versions, though in a few cases freed of the sappy strings that weighed down the record's weaker tracks, aren't enough to overcome the limitations of the material.

Which brings us to the Rolling Stones' 1976 record Black And Blue. Like Who Are You, it was a transitional album, and one of my least favorite from the band. Guitarist Mick Taylor had left (after helping them create their best work), and Black And Blue was essentially the band auditioning potential new guitarists on some undercooked songs. So it's always felt more like an informal jam session than a proper record. But what really made me hate this record was "Fool To Cry." It was one of the first Stones songs I heard--I was 10 when the single hit the Top 40 station--and I couldn't believe this was the band I'd heard so much about. It's full of schmaltzy keyboards that sound like a Bar Mitzvah band, while Jagger's falsetto crooning is excruciating.

Over time, I've come to appreciate the record ("Fool To Cry" aside) a little more. It's still not great, but there are couple songs that actually sound like Rolling Stones numbers, albeit marginal ones that would've been fine on Taylor's not-so-great 1974 swan-song It's Only Rock And Roll ("Hand Of Fate," "Crazy Mama," the ballad "Memory Motel"). The warmed-over funk/disco of "Hot Stuff" and "Hey Negrita" is... fine, I guess, but they're more like vamps than fully-realized songs.

The deluxe edition adds a bonus CD of leftovers. One of these, "I Love The Ladies," at least sounds like an actual song, albeit not a good one. The cover of "Shame, Shame, Shame" is a fun enough party track. The rest are instrumental jams--perfectly fine (particularly for fans of Jeff Beck, who joins for a few), but, again, there is no great treasure trove of hidden gems here.

For both of these box sets, the real value is in the inclusion of a complete concert (a 1979 Who show and a 1976 Stones gig). Both are pretty great, the work of a band past its live prime but sounding revitalized by line-up changes; and in both cases, the songs from a weak studio album fare much better in live form, energized in performance and benefiting from the context of being played alongside durable classics. Hell, even the live "Fool To Cry" is tolerable, some guitar pyrotechnics and Jagger charisma replacing the lounge act sludge; and the Who's "Music Must Change," iffy on the record, is similarly well-served by a little more breathing room on stage.

(The Who Are You deluxe issue also includes a couple more discs of live rehearsal sessions, which are mainly intended for diehards, with a fair amount of repetition.)

"Music Must Change" (live 1979):

"Hand Of Fate" (live 1976):